Morton J. Marcus is a former Prof of IU’s Business School (it has a corporate sponsorship but I’ll exercise my freedom to ignore it). He was director of the Indiana Business Research Center (IBRC) for…
Browsing Category Economics
Economics and Kindergarten
I would like to offer the following as a critical warm-up to the following “economics” article from the Times (from 2010) about the “value” of the Kindergarten experience. First, be clear, I think these early…
The Fiscal Freedom to Inculcate Evil
The following snippet is from a piece by Andrew Leonard on the SCOTUS ruling striking down the Montana Supreme Court decision to limit political contributions (in the teeth of Citizens United). It’s a clear loss…
Okay, I Guess, Whatever
The paradox of the mercantile culture we label “capitalism,” or probably more descriptively and truthfully for most of us, consumerism, is in its “false” interconnectedness. At the level of production, at the level of industrialized…
“Choice!” The Mindless Battle Cry of the Addicted
In a local newspaper opinion piece today the editors cry “Choice!” regarding the proposal by New York Mayor Bloomberg which seeks to ban the sale of toxic liquids in containers over 16 0z to human…
The Child of the Marketplace Metaphor
Since the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay, organized in covenants as a joint stock company, imagined themselves a mystic brotherhood reborn in the body of Christ, American history has progressed under the sway of two, conflicting…
Calculable Obligations: Motivations of Money and Technology
Debt, that is, as opposed to a promise, is a calculable obligation. I was reading a review of two books on the current state of global indebtedness in the London Review of Books (“Forgive Us…
Educating Business Ethics
The population of the US seems to be experiencing a kind of national awakening regarding the harsh and endemic inequalities of our “Us vs Them” economic reality. Though it seems possible that our bail-out and…
Learning Bathroom Discipline: Let Freedom Aggregate
One of the abiding memories of school for many of us is the fact that you have to ask permission to use the bathroom and that that request can be denied you.* We are taught…
The Epic of The Once-ler
In an age of too much, too fast, too late we have already shoved the Seussian idea of ecology into the recycle bin of useless messages. I would rage against this idiotic cotton candy confection–but…